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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Dare Ya...........

I learnt the hard way not to accept dares when you are in the middle of a workout! Last Friday, there I was just minding my own business and going about my swim workout when I hear...."Do you reckon you could swim the 25 yard length underwater?" Well that's a challenge if ever I heard one! I couldn't remember ever trying to do the whole length underwater in a 25yd pool, sure I had done it on vacation in a weeny hotel pool but 25 yards?

"Probably" came my response and with a quick breath I was off. I think I should have taken it a bit more seriously. The first few yards were easy as you just glide along after pushing off the wall and then you get into sculling/breast stroking underwater.....that's harder than you think. I got closer to the middle of the length and started to think that this would be an effort. Your chest starts to hurt and it feels like your lungs are going to burst. I couldn't just stop and not succeed, that would be way too easy :-) So I struggled on and it seemed to take an age, I felt like I was going soooooo slowwwwwww but with seemingly my last breaths left I scraped the wall and gasped for air. Triumphant indeed......going hypoxic wasn't part of the workout plan but fortunately it didn't completely gas me for the rest of the session.

Thinking about it, it probably isn't a bad test to do every once in a while. I don't think I necessarily need to scull the length underwater as doing a regular freestyle stroke and trying not to breath during the length is probably easier and much quicker.

So what's the takeaway from this......don't always accept challenges on a whim, yeah I did it but jeez it hurt! Next time I might give it a bit more thought :-)

3 comments:

We used to do that as part of a workout a loooooong time ago (when I knew how to swim). 25 meters underwater (or as far as you could go underwater), then 25 meters hard free...rest 30 seconds...repeat.